Charles Reiner

Charles Reiner (7 April 1924 – 19 August 2006, Montreal) was a Canadian pianist and music educator of Hungarian birth. He won several competitions, including the Geneva International Music Competition in 1948. After moving to Montreal in 1951 he became a naturalized Canadian citizen. He performed internationally as both a concert pianist and accompanist, and performed frequently on CBC Radio and CBC Television during his career. He had a lengthy and fruitful collaboration in concert and on record with the violinist Henryk Szeryng. He was a founding member of both the Canadian Piano Quartet and Musica Camerata Montreal. He taught for forty years on the music faculty of the Schulich School of Music at McGill University.

Life and career Charles Reiner was born in Budapest, Hungary on 7 April 1924. A child prodigy, he made his professional debut as a concert pianist at a very young age with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. Born to Jewish parents, he was interned in a Nazi concentration camp in Austria during World War II. Following his release from the camp, he pursued studies at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in his native city; earning a diploma in 1947. His teachers at the academy included Árpád Hanák, Arnold Székely, and Bela Böszörmenyi-Nagy.

In addition to his performance career, Reiner was a member of the music faculty at McGill University from 1954-1994. He also taught at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Trois-Rivières from 1965-1967, and at the École normale de musique de Montreal.

Reiner died in Montreal on 19 August 2006.